Sugar Town

by Robert Nicholls

  He wiped his nose on his sleeve and shook his head, but kept his eyes averted, refusing to look. It was that refusal, I think, that tipped me the final bit – out of the game and into the terrifying needs of reality.

  “Answer me!” I screamed at him. “Why does it matter that much, Hoggs? Why shouldn’t I be asking questions?”

  He had a rocking motion up by then, hugging himself and moaning deep in his throat.

  “What? You just gonna lie there and whine? Lie there and feel sorry for yourself? Where’s all your big, brave courage gone, you little puke? I tell you, you better come up with some answers, Hoggs! ‘Cause I swear . . . I’m gonna let him shoot you! Understand? ‘Cause I’ve had enough o’ this shit! We’ve all have! We had enough yesterday! And today is just way too much! So this is your last chance to talk to me, Hoggs! This is it! Last minute! Right? No? Still nothing? Well! Fine then! Fine and forgotten!” I waved my arms in all too real and tearful exasperation. “You get what you deserve then, you stupid lump! Go ahead, Isak! Shoot him!”

  His legs slid out behind him and he covered his head with his hands, weeping uncontrollably. Isak, meanwhile, shuffled his feet and grunted, making a show of licking his fingers and damping the peep sight; all the while glancing nervously at us, obviously surprised to have the ball back in his court so quickly. I wonder to this day what I would’ve let him do to Hoggs if, finally, Amalthea hadn’t risen from her seat. She gently urged Hoggs to his knees, brushed hair from his forehead and tapped his cheek.

  “Get up, Franz. It’s all right, no one’s going to shoot you.”

  She pulled his shirt front up and wiped his face with it, before tugging him to his feet and seating him at the dining table where he slumped, sniffling helplessly. Amalthea knelt in front of him, seemingly oblivious to the room’s wet, sour smells of anger and fear.

  “Your mother asked me yesterday,” she said softly, “why I came to Sugar Town. I didn’t tell her, Franz. None of her business, right? But I think I’m going to tell you.”

  She got no response, but carried on regardless.

  “Listen to me, Franz. ‘Cause I think this might be important to you. Okay? The reason I’m here is . . . I’m looking for a father.”

  Her voice was so lacking in expression, she might have been saying she was looking for a butterfly. I let my mouth drop open, ensuring that the rasp of my breathing wouldn’t startle her into silence. “He’s a guy I lost a long time ago,” she continued. “Or rather, he lost me. He left my mother before I was born and he never came back – never came looking for me. What do you think, Franz? Is that a fatherly way to be?”

  He raised his eyes at last and focussed on her, mystified.

  “No,” she answered for him. “No, I don’t think so either. Fathers should be there for their kids, shouldn’t they? They should be wise and caring and protective and . . . there! But you know what I’ve learned? I’ve learned that sometimes . . . they don’t manage. Maybe they’re trying, maybe they’re not! Whatever! They don’t manage. So sometimes kids find themselves . . . having to be the wise ones. Isn’t that right, Franz?”

  He nodded minutely, his eyes, like all our eyes, now fixed on her.

  “There you go,” she confirmed. “I knew you’d understand.” And she groaned to her feet and, moving to stand over Rosemary, continued, “You know, some people’d say she was just a goat, Franz. Like it wasn’t much to be a goat. But goats are more special than most people think! You can always trust a goat’s judgement. Look!”

  She bent to Garlic, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Garlic, what do you think? Was it Franz who hurt Rosemary?” Garlic shook his head. “No? Well what about that gas bottle? Did he move that, do you think, and try to hurt Bessie?” Again, Garlic wagged his head. “No? What about the fire at Ruthie and Asa’s place, then? Surely Franz lit that, don’t you think?” Garlic was still for a long moment, sniffing the air and blinking his blind eyes. Then he shook his head.

  Amalthea patted Garlic fondly and sat back down, leaving us all wide-eyed, wondering what had just happened; letting the craziness leak away. Then Isak grunted to his feet and stomped off into the kitchen, giving us all the welcome distraction of slamming cupboards. When he came back, it was with a bottle of rum and a pair of juice glasses. He sat at the table next to Hoggs and poured two hefty drinks.

  “Fair dinkum, Franz!” he said, pushing one across. “It’s hard to keep up, innit?”

  The rum slid down Isak’s throat in a single gulp, surrounded by the smacking of lips and happy gummy noises. Franz coughed and grimaced over his but choked it down determinedly. Isak, having waited impatiently for it to be gone, refilled the glasses and sent a second shot scurrying after the first.

  “Aahh!” he growled. “That’s better, eh? Come on, get it into ye, boy! Not every day ye come that close to gettin’ shot, I don’t ‘spect!” And as Hoggs gulped, he turned to Amalthea, “Now! From the beginnin’, girlie!”

  Amalthea’s explanation went like this. It was unlikely, she figured, that Franz started the fire because when it started, he was at the pub. He’d rung Frieda from there, looking for his missing father. She and I, Amalthea pointed out, were there at Kevin’s when the call came. So Franz had an alibi for that. And yet, apparently, he was willing to take responsibility for it! Why? Obviously, he thought he was protecting someone. Who? Who but his father . . . the mayor! The mayor had already made a show in the main street of the rage I’d stirred in him. When, only a few hours later, he was there, drunk as a skunk, at the burning of my house, Franz (Amalthea concluded) had jumped to the same conclusion that we had.

  “Am I right, Franz? You think he lit the fire? And if he did that, well, it wouldn’t be much of a step to moving a gas bottle to scare an old lady, would it? Or even to catching and wounding a harmless little goat, to warn people off asking more questions! Isn’t that right?”

  Hoggs looked at the floor in silence and Isak poured each of them a third shot which, a few moments later, managed to break the shackles on Hoggs’ tongue.

  “I don’t know why!” he snivelled. “I mean everyone knows . . . !” His eyes were already starting to swim around in his head. “Everyone knows now! But why’s he so mad? What’s it got to do with him? I mean, he reckons to me, all anyone wanted was to stop things gettin’ uglier! Courts ‘n’ fuckin’ laws ‘n’ shit! ‘Specially after that bastard who done it . . . that Crampton bloke . . . !” He looked at Isak, uncertainly. “They reckon you killed him!”

  Isak tapped the base of his glass on the table and threw back a fourth shot. “That I did, young fella!”

  “Whoa, man!” Hoggs’ lifted his already sopping shirt tail to mop more tears and snot from his face. “That is heavy shit, dude! Me dad, he tol’ me you were fuckin’ bent, ye know? I never believed him!”

  “Well ye do now, don’t ye! Bent as a fuckin’ copper nail! An’ don’t you forget it!”

  And the liquor finally completed the task our threats had failed to do; slapping Hoggs’ tongue entirely loose.

  “Christ, Ruthie! All yer shit about cover-ups an’ all! Why couldn’t ye jus’ leave it? Askin’ Alf an’ Mister Cranna an’ who knows who else an’ gettin’ this Bessie shiela’s back up! An’ you,” (meaning Isak), “makin’ them accusations at the hospital an’ then runnin’ off like some kinda evil spirit an’ you (Amalthea) pushin’ it all along an’, an’, an’ this space thing comin’ down here like it’s some kinda judgement on Sugar Town an’ Asael bringin’ back the dead or what-fuckin’-ever . . . ! Then Bridie takin’ them pills . . .! It’s like fuckin’, a cliff has opened up in fron’ of ‘im, an’ he’s jus’ knowin’ someone’s behind ‘im, ready to push!”

  “But he’s your dad,” Amalthea pointed out reasonably. “And you love him, whatever he’s done. And you don’t want to fail him. So you’re willing to take the blame to protect him. Is that right?”

  In answer, Hoggs choked back his fourth shot.

  “If you weren’t
the one who hurt Rosemary,” I asked, “how could you have known about Isak finding her?”

  “‘Cause I found her first! The mayor . . . ma threw him in the back bedroom to sleep it off when we got home from the fire, see. But when she checked on him in the middle o’ the night, he was gone again. So she sent me out lookin’ for him. Sometimes I find him, ye know; jus’ sittin’ on a bench in the main street! Middle o’ the night! Contemplatin’ his fuckin’ button or somethin’. Keepin’ a watch, he reckons. On his town! But he wunt there! So I come ‘roun’ this way, see? Reckoned if he had already burned yours, this place might be next! Come creepin’ down, I did. Gonna grab him without wakin’ anyone up. An’ I foun’ ‘at goat an’ na knife! But I didn’ know what to do. An’ ‘en I heard you (Isak) comin’. I thought it mus’ be me dad, see, comin’ back! So I hid! Gonna pounce on him an’ drag him home, I was! ”

  “And the gas bottle?”

  “Dunno anything about that. But it seems to fit in, don’ it? With everything else he done?”

  “It would,” Amalthea said, “if he actually had done the other stuff. But you know, I don’t think he did! Not any of it!”

  I’d just about let myself be convinced otherwise, so this was quite a surprise to me. She went on.

  “I spent nearly an hour with Sergeant Morrow, this morning, filling out a report on Rosemary. I mentioned the mayor at the fire last night – the fact that he’d gone missing for an hour or two – just letting him know that I knew! Sergeant Morrow told me your dad was with him, at the police station yesterday afternoon, Franz. When you were looking for him, he and the sergeant were drinking and arguing. About Sugar Town’s . . . past history!”

  “Hmph!” Isak grunted, pouring more rum. “Never too late for drinkin’, but way too friggin’ late for arguin’!”

  “According to Morrow, the mayor was needing to know what evidence still existed about the rape and Les’s disappearance. Wanted it out on display, for all to see! And he staggered off only minutes before the fire siren started.”

  “According to Morrow!” I sneered. “Last night, you were reckoning he might be an arsonist! That he was protecting criminals instead of catching them! And today he’s one o’ the good guys?”

  “I’m not saying anything about what happened years ago, Ruth! That’s a whole different story. But as far as last night goes, I don’t think either of them was involved. Mainly because the sergeant showed me what he and the mayor were arguing over – before the fire and again later in the night, when Rosemary was being attacked!” A smile patted the edges of her mouth. “He has 1997 and 1998, Ruth! Your father’s sermons and notes! The two crucial years! He picked them out before he left your house in the afternoon! They’re what he and the Mayor were trying to make sense of! So if someone burned your place thinking they were destroying the last records . . . well, it wouldn’t have been either of them, would it?”

  I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t keep up with it! It was like we were in a game where people changed sides without warning.

  “Oh bugger, bugger, bugger! First it’s Hoggs, then it’s not Hoggs! Then it’s the mayor, then it’s not the mayor! It might’ve been Morrow in the past but it’s probably not Morrow now, because he’s got books full of clues that nobody knows exist – and that’re so crazy-nutjob-obscure they barely made any sense even to the people they were aimed at, let alone to us! But they seem to have flipped someone’s lid anyhow! How’re we . . . ? What’re we . . . ?”

  Exhaustion. Confusion. Fear. Anger. I was stupefied by it all.

  “Listen,” Amalthea explained calmly, “Morrow was up-front about the books, Ruth. That’s all I’m saying! And I think it speaks in his favour! I asked if he and Lyle had argued out any conclusions and he said no. Not yet! But there are names! Lots of names! Lots of people who trod on your father’s sensibilities! Morrow admits that he himself is there. As is the mayor and Kevin and Cranna and lots of others. So he’s still looking! And I think, for the moment, we have to do like Frieda said and give him his space.”

  “Bloody useless!” I pointed out. “The very fact that the Rev’ singled out guys like Kevin and Johnathon is proof o’ that! As far as he was concerned, everyone was on a roller coaster ride to hell!”

  “Damn straight!” Isak growled.

  “Pissed meself!” Hoggs murmured in surprise. And then he threw up.

  * * *

  We considered pulling Hoggs’stinking pants off him before laying him on the floor in Amalthea’s room, with a pillow under his head. We considered it and thought better of it, in case more leakage occurred. Then I set to work cleaning up the spew in the living room. It was the least I could do. Poor Hoggs! Enduring my probably baseless rage! For no other sin than loyalty to a deficient father.

  While I worked, Isak and Asael talked about Queenie. I was half listening, half gagging, but I gathered that, aside from the initial ‘dream’ of Gramma G, Isak had gained very little from Queenie. A vague sense of approval, he thought; which was incentive enough to keep him pushing forward. But no clues, no hints . . . certainly no ‘magical powers’! It set me to wondering again what was happening with Asael. Was he, as he seemed to think (and even I, at times, was half convinced) functioning on some sort of spiritual connection with Queenie? Or was he short-circuiting for medical reasons?

  And that led me to think of Doctor Dabney, who we’d have to visit to find out. And that led me to think again of Bridie, lying in a hospital bed, with Johnathon only a couple of rooms away. Which led me to think of Matron’s dogged supervisory techniques. It was another circle, round and round, that I couldn’t shake. I rang Kevin.

  “Stay there!” he said. “I’m closing up. I’ll be right over.”

  By the time I got off the phone, Isak had wandered into the bedroom and flopped, immovably, on Amalthea’s bed, while Asael and Garlic had curled up together on the living room floor, next to Rosemary. Amalthea rang Frieda, then, to come get Hoggs.

  She and I sat on the veranda to wait, talking quietly and I had to decide which to ask about first: the ‘looking for my father’ story she’d told Hoggs, or her thoughts on who, if not Hoggs or the mayor, was responsible for last night. Having a pretty good idea who the lost father was, I decided to tackle that one before the man himself, Kevin, showed up.

  “Does he know who you are?” I asked.

  “He knows all he needs to know. Which is less than you know. And I’d like to keep it that way, please.”

  “Are you sure he’s the one?”

  “Ninety per cent.”

  “Why don’t you just ask him?”

  “Because if I ask and he’s says yes, then I’m stuck with him, and him with me. And I’m not sure I want him. And I’m guessing, from the fact that he never came looking, that he never wanted me.”

  “But you wouldn’t . . . you wouldn’t just go away again, after finding him, and not tell him who you are?”

  “Ruthie, I made some promises. First to my sister and then to my mother, who it seems never stopped loving whatever man it was who fathered me. Even though he abandoned her. If it was up to me alone, I’d have stayed content with my life-father – my step-father – who I love dearly and who loves me. I don’t need anything from Kevin.”

  “What if he needs something from you?”

  She rose to her feet, annoyed. “Don’t be tiresome, Ruthie. What if your father needed something from you? After he abandoned you to go off with his . . . Agnes?”

  “I can’t imagine the Reverend needing anything from me.”

  “No? Not even forgiveness?”

  She arched a brow at me and I had to concede the point. Nonetheless, the Reverend was obviously out there nourishing his ‘demons’. No one could imagine Kevin having demons.

  “Where are they?” I managed to ask. “Your mother and step-father?”

  “Where are they? Well! They’re all in their various versions of Summerland, I guess. Philippa died five years ago. She was almost your age, alm
ost thirteen. Maybe even more brave, more determined, more stubborn than you, if you can imagine. A year after that, our mother developed leukaemia. She lasted six months. And two years further on, my father – my step-father – Philippa’s father – developed Alzheimer’s. We looked after him on the farm for a year. Now he’s in a home, living a simple, uncomplicated life. And before you go getting all solemn and morbid about it, don’t! It’s just the stuff that happens. When I started clearing up their papers, I found the photos of mum and Kevin. And I found other stuff as well. Childhood sweetheart stuff. Correspondence. Very sweet. Just enough clues for us to come looking, Rosemary and Garlic and I. You see? Every ending is a new beginning! I always thought we’d have a look – fulfil our promises – and then go home, back to the farm. Which hasn’t worked out very well for Rosemary, I guess. But her story got snagged on yours, didn’t it. And that’s just another thing that happens. Now, if you think you have enough information, I’m going to go have a shower.”

  She was in there for a long while. After a bit, I listened at the door and could hear the little animal noises of her crying. There’s nothing like a good shower to carry away tears.

  * * *

  Johnathon Cranna sits in his wheelchair, his forehead pressed to the cool porcelain of the sink, his heart hammering. Damn her, he’s thinking. Damn her and her sister and her brother and her arrogant, self-righteous father! He’d fallen asleep thinking of Ruthie McFarlane and how satisfying it might be to have her work for him, cleaning and organising, moving about his rooms at his beck and call. And he’s woken from a terrifying dream.

  It started well enough, with himself swaying through cheering throngs, waving away kudos, shrugging off praise. Straight through, he’d gone, directly to the centre where a sign flashed, bearing his name. Massive, he was, crisp and important, like a movie star. Vast as an airship. His body began to float.

  But then – he rose too high, too fast! He clawed for the ground but couldn’t reach and, below him, the people’s cries of jubilation turned to cries of dismay. Only one person, magnified in his dreamer’s eye, stared placidly up at him and he knew! He knew that she was the one who’d slipped his tether. That person was a little girl – a beautiful, blossoming, icy cold little girl. He could clearly see her, her long tantalising legs, her feet in little pink Brooks Brothers sandals.